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Dan Biggerstaff sent in this photo of a "monster stingray" B. Coyotey caught at Tybee's North Beach Saturday. The stingray was released, he says.

It looks like a Southern stingray, which get to be over 6-feet wide, but I'm guessing the species from Googling around. Maybe those more in the know about stingrays can tell us differently.

Last week a 6-foot-long Atlantic sturgeon washed up on Tybee, dead unfortunately. At least this guy got to swim another day. It does make you wonder what else is lurking in the surf. I'm also wondering: Is it a good idea to pull it by its tail? They are called stingrays for a reason, right?

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Devin Dumont of the UGA Aquarium at Skidaway took one look at the photo and identified it as a Southern stingray. He said its barb, which is positioned about halfway down its tail, could've been removed, or it could have already shot it off. Fishermen sometimes cut them off; the barb can regenerate. As sting rays go, this one is average size, Devin said. This species can get to the size of a car hood.

When I was young, a friend worked on one of many 60 ft. shrimp boats out of Thunderbolt.That's something you don't see around here anymore. But they did most of their dragging right off the Tybee beach. My friend's boat once caught something, or rather it caught them, that was so big they thought they had snagged a sunken boat. They manuvered around until they managed to pull up the net, so heavy they feared it would turn the boat over, but they had no choice. When the net broke the surface it was full of the largest skate they had ever seen. It's "wings" went almost over the edges of the rear deck of the boat. That would be 15-20 feet. Unfortunately before they could get it untangled from the net, the skate died. They returned to the docks where he was unloaded with a small crane and made into "scallops". Somewhere, pictures exist. We don't ever know what is right under our feet. We think we know so much, when we really know so little about the world in which we exist.

@imasample: *I* don't know if it could sting, but the folks in the photo might very well know if they already removed its barb.
@snowangel: Great story. Thank you. And you're right, we don't know as much as we think we do.

...when I was young child down at Shellman's Bluff my daddy caught a stingray that had to be hauled up by Kip's boat lift. It covered the entire hood of our 1973 Lincoln Continental Town Car. (Back then a Lincoln Town Car was bigger than some current day mobile homes!)